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SEATTLE 

The Honorable , the Congress of the United States: 

The need of a Federal building at Seattle, the chief city of the State of 
Washington, is unquestioned. Seattle is now the largest city in the United States 



Seattle Elevator and Flour Mill. 








without such a building-. It may also be said that in no other city of the Union 
of like population are there so many branches of the Government service, nor in 
any other such city is there anything- like so much Government business. Not only 
should the city have a building on account of its own population and importance, 



A Seattle Shipyard—Twelve Steamers Building Simultaneously. 







but the interests of the General Government itself loudly call for a home in 
which they may be congregated, preserved and conveniently cared for. 


A Seattle Product—The Torpedo Boat Rowan, 

What are these interests? What are all these branches of the public 







service? They may be separately stated with profit. 

There is, of course, the post office. This is an establishment with sixty- 
five employees ; that sold stamps, envelopes, wrappers, and cards to the amount of 
over one hundred and thirty thousand dollars in 1898, besides a vast registered 



Mount Rainier as Seen From Seattle. 


packag*e business, money order transactions amounting* to millions of dollars, and 
the handling* of mail matter which in number of pieces and in bulk exceeds the 
quantity of any other office on the Pacific slope except San Francisco. In addition 
to the one office where all these thing’s occur there are in the suburban districts 
five other post offices and scattered throug*h the city six sub-stations. 

Seattle has the U. S. District Court, Circuit Court and Court of Appeals. 
Connected with them are the Judg*e, Clerk, Marshal and Attorney, with numerous 
assistants, all provided with offices; also two U. S. Commissioners. The judicial 





business is enormous. In fact, the Washington Judge has more work to do than 
any other District Judge west of Chicago, 

Seattle is a sub-port of entry. It has a customs office, in which are em¬ 
ployed two Deputy Collectors, eight inspectors, an examiner and clerk. The direct 
foreign trade amounts to six million dollars per annum. The revenues of the office 
in 1898 aggregated $112,000. There is a shipping* commissioner in addition, 

In July last the Government opened an assay office in Seattle. It at once 
took front rank among the assay offices of the country, being equalled by only 
those of New York and Denver. The depositors of the first half year numbered 
nearly three thousand, and the gold deposited amounted to six million dollars. 
The employees number fifteen. In his annual report of December 6th, 1898, the 
Secretary of the Treasury says the Seattle office “ will probably be one of the most 
important in the Mint service,” and he recommends an appropriation for a suit¬ 
able building. 

There is also a land office in the city, with Register, Receiver and subordi¬ 
nates. The office does a large business, disposing of 132,000 acres in 1898, and re¬ 
ceiving in cash $44,000. There are g*enerally one or two special agents about. 

The office of Inspectors of Steam Vessels for Washington and Alaska is in 
Seattle. The district is the largest in the United States, having vastly more land 
surface than any other and incomparably more water transportation routes. The 



Steamship Riojun Maru Loading at Seattle for Japan and China, 

The Weather Bureau has maintained an establishment in the city for six 


business has grown enormously of late years, and until the Seattle office has be¬ 
come one of the most important in the country, inspecting* 358 steamers in 1898 
and licensing* a great number of officers annually. 



years, and the office has become the principal one in the State of Washington. 
Its duties and importance have been increased several times already, and will be 
further increased in the near future. 

The War Department is represented in Seattle by Quartermaster offices, 
recruiting* office and military engineers, occupying' eleven rooms and employing 
sixteen persons. 

In addition to the foregoing* there are in Seattle the internal revenue office, 
a marine hospital office, an office of the Coast and Geodetic survey, secret service, 
Chinese inspection, paymaster of the U. S. Navy, and revenue marine, with in the 
ag'greg'ate much business and numerous officers. 

All of these mean a g'reat deal of expense to the Government for quarters. 
This amounts at present to $12,500 per annum. A year ag'o, with fewer establish¬ 
ments, it was $10,500, and three years ago under $8000. In future years it will 
pay much more than it is at present paying. Further, the rooms at present oc¬ 
cupied are generally inadequate. They were built for other purposes. Too often, 
for the purpose of saving' money, the Government officials have been located in 
shabby apartments in inferior houses, with limited room and light, bad approaches 
and janitor service, and without suitable protection for records and valuables 
ag'ainst fire. They have also been scattered about town. At this time they are in 
thirteen different building's. This is exceedingly inconvenient, and is detrimental 
to the general service. Connected with these offices there is not a single spare 



Steamship Garonne Loading at Seattle for Honolulu and Hilo. 

room. When the civil service examinations are held the board has to go to the 
Chamber of Commerce, the public schools, the courts, the city or county for a 



suitable room. When a Congressional Committee meets here, or a Government 
Commission is in session, it is the same. There is no place for them, no public 
accommodation, no convenience that they are not obligated for to the private citi¬ 
zen. Of course, this is wrong, but it is hardly less wrong than the location of the 
Federal offices in out-of-the-way, cheap places, which private individuals doing a 
corresponding amount of business would not think of occupying. 

Seattle is rapidly becoming a large city. Its inhabitants numbered 3533 in 
1880 ; 9786 in 1885; 42,837 in 1890 ; 57,542 in 1892. Since the latter year there has 
been no enumeration of the people. Eig*hty thousand is a reasonable estimate of 
the number at the beginning of 1899. There is no reason for doubting that the 
National census of 1900 will place Seattle among* the cities having 100,000 or 
more inhabitants. 

Seattle is a commercial city. It has three transcontinental railway com¬ 
panies rolling their trains in and out daily. It has also three local lines of railway. 
Four ocean going* ships arrive daily and four depart. Of inland craft there are 
fifty a day each way. 

Seattle is a manufacturing center. Vast quantities of lumber and shingles 
are cut in its mills, and sent East bv rail and to foreign ports by ship. It has 
iron shops, flour mills, cigar factories, and a hundred other kinds of industrial 
works. One of the chief lines is shipbuilding and repairing. During 1898 ninety- 
three new vessels were completed in Seattle shipyards and documented among the 


merchant vessels of the United States. They ranged in tonnage from six to 718, 
and aggregated 16,555 net tons. Twelve were schooners, fifteen were barges, fifty- 
seven were steamers, and nine were scows. 



A Seattle Hotel—The Denny, 




Seattle is noted on the Pacific Coast for its 
coal mining* interests. The mines, from ten to thirty 
miles back of town, have been in operation for nearly a 
quarter of a century. During* that time their product 
has ag*g*reg*ated 8,000,000 tons. The output of 1898 was 
over 600,000 tons, the exports nearly 400,000 tons, the 
local consumption about 200,000 tons. Our coal goes 
chiefly to California and Alaska, some to Oreg*on, and 
not a little to other points in the State of Washington. 

Gold Mining—A Seattle Resource, 

Seattle is a g'rowing* market for grain. The receipts of 1896 were 1,553,- 
350 bushels; of 1897, 1,305,183 bushels; of 1898, 2,940,144 bushels. Much of the 
wheat is turned into flour, and shipped in larg*e quantities to Japan, China, and 
Siberia. Most of the remainder is placed on ship and sent direct to Europe. 

Seattle has in sight, and only eight miles away, the largest sawmill enter¬ 
prise in the world. The company owns its town, ships, steamers, timber lands, 
logging railroads, mill, store, hotel, etc., the whole establishment being worth 
millions of dollars. The output of its immense sawmill in 1896 and 1897 was 220,- 
000,000 feet of lumber. On the company’s townsite is a yard that has been build- 



ing ships for twenty-four years. During- that time it has put into the sea ninety 
vessels, ranging- from 48 to 902 tons measurement, the whole fleet aggregating 35,- 
989 tons. 


Seattle is the chief trading point for the North 
Pacific Coast, a region embracing nearly a million 
square miles, with a population of three-quarters of a 
million souls. In 1898 the city trade in leading articles 
(excluding' liquors) amounted to $29,884,500, a gain of 
$9,134,500 or 44 per cent over 1897. 

Seattle is prospering. This is indicated in many 
ways. One is the matter of bank clearances. These 
in 1895 aggregated $25,691,157 ; in 1896, $28,157,065 ; in 
1897, $36,045,228; in 1898, $68,443,636. Deposits in 
Seattle banks were $3,000,071 in 1896; $5,248,355 in 
1897; $7,961,665 in 1898. 


Seattle has public buildings for all purposes except those of the United 
States. The county owns one, a courthouse; the state six, in the University; the 
city a hall, jail and eight engine houses; the school district twenty-one school 
buildings. Some of these houses are showy, fine, enduring-—objects of local pride 
as well as of usefulness.' 



A Bit of Seattle's Business Quarter. 




The County Court House at Seattle. 














Seattle is well supplied with parks, has a hundred miles of street railway, 
owns its own waterworks, and is in every respect a modern and complete city. 

The statements foreg'oing* give an approximate idea of the city of Seattle as 
a permanent seat of Government interests; as a railroad, mining*, manufacturing*, 
shipping*, and money center; as a growing* place; as a place of great present im¬ 
portance, and as a place of greater prospective importance; and as a place of de¬ 
sirable character in which to live and do business. In such a city the Federal 
Government should be represented in the best possible manner; in keeping*, in 
harmony, with the surrounding's, in the same manner that it is represented in like 
cities throughout the country. It should not lag* behind the city, the county, the 
schools, the merchants, the citizens generally. As they find it well and profitable 
to do, the Government should also do. They have bougdit lands and built 
houses; they have made streets, the trade, the town; have not only made it pos¬ 
sible for the Government to do its extensive business in Seattle, but have made it 
impossible to do business anywhere near Seattle without coming* to the city for 
that purpose. The Federal Government owns 391 building's in different parts of 
the country, many of them in towns with less than one-fourth the population of 
Seattle, and in some towns where is only a sing'le branch of the public service. 
Why the settled policy of having* its own house in which to attend to its own 
affairs, should be disregarded in the case of so larg*e and important a city as 
Seattle—with sixteen branches of the service and one hundred and fifty employees 


is beyond understanding*. That this anomaly, this disregard of Government in¬ 
terests, should be allowed to longer continue is all but impossible. 

Judging by past_experiences in the matter of erecting Government build¬ 
ing's, a period of from eight to twelve years will be required to complete a building 
and fit it for use after the first appropriation for its cost has been made by Con¬ 
gress. A conservative estimate of the cost of rental for rooms required for tran¬ 
sacting public business of the United States ten years from the present time, if 
the Government continues to be a renter, will exceed the interest at 3 per cent on 
$1,000,000. Taking this into account, common business prudence suggests that 
there ought not to be further hesitation in taking the first steps. 

THE SEATTLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE BY, 

C. H. HANFORD, 

WILSON R. GAY, 

W. E. BOONE, 

W. J. COLKETT, 

THOS. W. PROSCH, 

Committee on Federal Building*. 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



Washington University Building at Seattle, 


0 027 133 172 1 










